Quoting KatolaZ (kato...@freaknet.org): > Strange as it may sound to you, yes, there are still many users who > are using i386 hw, and the only reasonable way for them to continue > use those hw is by having Linux.
While I'm sure this is true for some number of people, aren't these now incredibly old computers? (I say this as someone still running his flagship Internet server on an antique PIII, by the way.) While you can point to various IA-32 CPUs produced over the years by Intel/Harris Corporation/Chips and Technologies, AMD/NexGen, VIA/Centaur/IDT, Transmeta, Cyrix/TI/SGS-Thomson/IBM/National Semiconductor, NEC, Siemens, Rise Technology, United Microelectronics Corporation/Meridian Semiconductor, UMC, DM&P Electronics/SiS, ZF Micro, Zet, RDC Semiconductors, ao486, ALi, Nvidia,and possibly others, to the best of my recollection everyone moved to a x86_64 flavour around 2003-ish (or exited the market). So, I estimate that these computers are at least 14 years old. I nurse along a totally obsolete 2001 rackmount beast myself, so I won't preach to others against doing so, but decade-plus-old computers are fragile and require specialty parts if it's ever necessary to repair them. Which, I would argue, is one of a number of reasons why this is fairly considered a specialty niche in 2017, that actually merits discouraging for new installations. I mean, I did install Debian m68k on an antique (circa 1990) Apple Macintosh IIci -- 25 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU, 4MB standard RAM expandable using up to 16 x 4 MB 80ns 30-pin SIMMs, SCSI 40MB hard disk -- and you can still do that in 2017, but... really. Friends asked me how it ran Debian, and I replied 'Well, it walked Debian briskly.' > All those users are being left without any other choice than throwing > their hw away by many distributions, without a concrete motivation > (well, except the usual "it's old so it must be thrown away", which is > as popular as lame these days...) > > Why should Devuan do the same? IMO: Because of the year on the current calendar. _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
